ICONS of WorldSBK TROY CORSER
A MAN FOR ALL MOTOS
The word ‘ icon ’ is often overused in motorsport but a certain two time WorldSBK champion from Australia fits that description perfectly . Few riders are as closely linked to success in more eras of WorldSBK racing than Troy Corser . Here we look at the many reasons he has become an all-time legend of the sport .
At one time Australia was seen as not so much a pool of future WorldSBK talent but a continental-sized lagoon . Top Aussie riders permeated through every class in the paddock , snatching trophies and gaining global recognition on an industrial scale . Only two of these hyper-determined talents from Aus achieved the final accolade of being crowned WorldSBK champion , however . Somewhat bizarrely , both were called Troy .
It is Mr C , not Mr . B , we are talking about this time . A rider with two WorldSBK championships to his name after he retired for full-time WorldSBK competition . Troy Corser was just two months short of his 40th birthday when he had his last WorldSBK race , at Portimao in 2011 . He had started full-time WorldSBK competition in 1995 , but his first wildcard ride at Phillip Island was way , way back in 1992 , on a Yamaha . That was just a handful of years after the whole WorldSBK championship itself had commenced in 1988 .
His active racing career was , eventually , longer than the whole Australian coastline . And Australia was simply not big enough to hold him .
Somewhat unusually , he crossed the Pacific in answer to the demands of his extra-national ambition , in 1994 , to compete in what was then called the AMA Superbike Championship - riding for the highly respected Fast by Ferracci Ducati squad . He won it first time out , of course , all while scoring podiums every time he finished his numerous wild card rides at WorldSBK events .
Troy ’ s full-time WorldSBK journey , one that began inside the Promotor Power Horse Ducati squad , saw him take the first of 33 career race wins at the awesome Salzburgring in ‘ 95 . The rest is well-documented and never dull racing history . On the balance of probability , only a busted spleen after a hard crash in practice at the final round of the 2008 season at Sugo stopped Troy becoming a three time WorldSBK champion .
Possibly the most remarkable thing about the statistical map of Corser ’ s career is that he won not only two world championships , but he achieved it on two different brands of machine . His first came on his Power Horse Ducati in 1996 , and the second on an Alstare Suzuki , in 2005 .
His 33 career race wins ( making him the eighth best rider of all time ) took him a whopping 377 full race starts to record . That said , a more impressive stat is that he finished on the WorldSBK podium on no less than 130 occasions . Until GOAT Jonathan Rea came along , that career podium total was the one to beat .
His other seemingly unattainable WorldSBK stats came via his sometimes supernatural ability to secure pole positions . Until Tom Sykes ( and then Rea , again ) came along , Corser was